HOTEL REVIEW
HARTWELL HOUSE
Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire

Historically speaking, you are in good company when you stay at Hartwell House. Louis XVIII lived in this 17th-century pile during his exile here from 1809 to 1814, when his accession to the throne was signed in the library. During the Second World War it was used as a training ground for British and American troops and more recently Bill Clinton visited when he was US President. Once owned by Historic House Hotels, which specialises in renovating run-down country houses, two years ago Hartwell was bestowed to the National Trust, with all profits going to the house and the charity.

The Grade I-listed hotel sits in 90 acres of landscaped parkland in the Vale of Aylesbury with a lake and stone bridge (once part of Kew Bridge), serious amounts of coiffeured topiary, statues and even a ruined church.

A suitably stately sweep of gravel drive, with a life-size statue of Frederick Prince of Wales, leads you to the front door. A waistcoated doorman welcomes you into the Great Hall with its antique furnishings and Coromandel screens and beautiful painted ceiling. Oil paintings, wood panelling, busts and statues are everywhere. There must be museums with fewer antiques than here, but being part of the National Trust makes this something of a living museum.

There are 30 bedrooms and suites in the main house, many named after the Bourbon family which graced them between 1809 and 1814. The roof terrace, once used by the French court for keeping chickens and rabbits and growing vegetables and herbs, is now a sheltered spot to catch the sun.

We slept in Hartwell Court, once the stable block built by Palladian architect William Kent, a short walk from the main building, now an annexe with 16 rooms and suites. On first sight our suite felt like an assault of chintz — heavily patterned drapes, tiny little sofas, china plates, repro furniture — but overall it works.

The charm is that it is cosy and comfortable but not necessarily on a grand level. The mini-kitchen in the corner, for example, had a very old-fashioned looking cream plastic kettle — not old in a groovy, vintage way but in a leftover-from-the-Seventies way. I would also take them to task on the bathrooms: ours had a Seventies cork-tiled floor — hardly in keeping with the rest of the hotel.

I wanted to explore the tiny Gothic church in the grounds but ceaseless rain meant we had to settle for a DVD of Gladiator ordered from reception.
After bacon and scrambled eggs the next morning we tried out the indoor swimming pool. Rather than being a state-of-the-art contemporary add-on, the spa and pool area perfectly matches the look of the hotel with its deep red walls and plaster moulds so you can enjoy the grandeur as you plough up and down.

We ate Sunday lunch in the grand dining room, with a mostly older crowd who I imagined were regulars. I later discovered the room is based on a room in 11 Downing Street which could explain a lot — it was a bit too hushed for my liking. But the views across the gardens are lovely. We ate roast beef with an enormous Yorkshire pudding and gravy. Clementine cheesecake was a light and perfect end to a rich meal.

As we checked out I flicked through the visitors book. The comments followed a theme of “the perfect weekend in the country”, summing up the experience rather nicely.

Hartwell House (01296, hartwell-house.com), Oxford Road, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire HP17 8NR, has doubles from £260 B&B.